Colour Gun
by icy-reality
Summary: Annie got to know Mikasa through tattoos. In Annie's small tattoo parlor, on a padded table, in a room in the back whose walls were covered with mirror shards and painted landscapes. The humming of the tattoo gun the only sound in the room, except for their breathing.


_Shingeki no Kyojin belongs to Hajime Isayama and I certainly don't own the characters._

Annie got to know Mikasa through tattoos.  
In Annie's small tattoo parlour, on a padded table, in a room in the back whose walls were covered with mirror shards and painted landscapes, the humming of the tattoo gun the only sound in the room, except for their breathing.

Mikasa's first tattoo had been a phoenix that took up most of her left shoulder and whose tail ended a couple centimeters above her coccyx. It was red and black, style: watercolour.

It was about 11 am, and so far the parlour had been empty. Annie had been sitting on the counter, book in hand, thumbing through the pages with something akin to boredom, looking up from time to time to check the clock on the wall, wondering why she even bothered to open on mornings. Afternoons and evenings were busy enough for her to collapse on the couch, a cold glass of water in one hand and the phone in the other. Food in the microwave, while she listened to her father: " Ever since you were little, your mother and I always thought you'd join the navy, just like me! Sure spent a lot of time with your old man, here. Ended up holding a gun alright, though!". But in the mornings, the only thing worth keeping the studio open were the brown and golden leaves that sweeped the sidewalk.  
She had put down the book and had been thinking about getting a coffee at the bar down the street when the bell had chimed.  
Mikasa had black hair and a red scarf. Her back was straight, her gaze steady and firm in Annie's blue eyes. "I want to get a tattoo", she had said, the words strong and clear, lingering in the air. No uncertainty, just a statement.  
Annie had stared at her. Mikasa's cheeks pink from the chilly October wind, her hair puffy and slightly disheveled.  
"That's usually why you enter a tattoo studio." she dog-eared the page "What did you have in mind?"

The needle entered and exited the skin without effort, leaving just the black outline in it's wake.  
Every couple minutes Annie stopped to wipe off the excess ink and just a few drops of blood. Bare chested under Annie's gloved hands, Mikasa didn't even twitch. Sometimes, when the needle passed over her spine, or ribs, she'd inhale ever so softly, the intake of air barely registered by her torso. Until Annie told her: " We're done, for today" she would stay still.  
Through that first day, Annie got to know Mikasa's discipline.

Finishing the tattoo took Annie five days.  
On the second day, she got to know the uneven texture of Mikasa's skin.  
They had talked about it before Annie had even sketched the phoenix. "It looks like I can cover them" Annie had said, taking a look at her back. " But I don't know, every single one of them is different. Pretty sure I can cover these, though." Mikasa had just nodded, pulling down the shirt on her strong back, leaving Annie with the feeling that she'd already seen signs like those.

Now, with the scars under the tattoo gun, Annie recognized exactly what had caused them. Her father had plenty of them on his body: two under his ribcage and one on his thigh.  
With her left hand, Annie caressed Mikasa's back, tracing her finger from one round spot of scarred tissue to the other; getting ink on her gloves where wiped off colour had left a cloud, tracing a skin coloured line connecting the stars to form a constellation.  
Mikasa shivered. Annie removed her hand and continued inking. "It doesn't matter if they're still visible." Mikasa had said.  
There a total of three scars on her back: one just above her ribcage, and two on her shoulder blade, just under her neck. They were all on the left: round and pale and prominent, their edges jagged like barbed wire. There were also two red lines that ran across her left side, from front to back: bullet scars. Bullet holes, and bullet grazes.  
" Are they old?" she asked, running over them with the colour gun. " Four years."  
They went silent again.

When the needle passed on those battle signs, Mikasa's intakes of breath got just a bit sharper, but her torso still barely registered them. And that was how Annie got the feeling that Mikasa was stronger than her body, well muscled and hard as granite, let on.

Mikasa's second tattoo were two wings, the left one black and the right one white, crossing on the back of her neck. Style: Black and grey.

When the door had opened, Annie had been on the phone, jutting down notes on a black leather agenda, listening intently while letting the ball of her tongue piercing roll on her underlip. Her hair had been down, a couple blonde strands falling on her left eye.  
Mikasa's hair had grown two centimeters or so past her chin, her tank top showing strong arms, stopping just above her bra, the top of her breasts visible.  
Annie had found herself following her figure- jeans-clad long legs and combat boots- while she strolled inside the shop.  
Annie had held up one finger, then said something into the phone and hung up.  
"What can I do for you?"  
Mikasa had held an envelope towards her, her good mood shining through her eyes. "What would I want in a tattoo studio?"

"I want to get it today" Mikasa had said, even before Annie had had the chance to open the envelope. Annie didn't have any open spots. Mikasa's tone had turned urgent. And then Annie had ripped the envelope open and taken the picture out. Her hands had started trembling. And that's how Mikasa had ended up at 8 pm, after the shop had closed, with Annie inking her nape.  
This time, too, Mikasa was absolutely immobile. During the previous sessions, Annie had learned some of her tells: the woman took short intakes of breath when it hurt, tensed her muscles when she was uncomfortable. Every time Annie touched the back of her neck though, Mikasa bit her lip and closed her eyes, trying to avoid twitching.  
"Sorry to keep you this late" she murmured, just after the tattoo gun had finished the outlining.  
"Never mind, I'm the one who gave you the appointment, weren't I?"  
Mikasa avoided twitching again.  
" So" Annie said, "the Navy."  
Mikasa didn't turn, Annie felt her stiffen under her fingers.  
"SEAL?"  
Mikasa didn't answer. Just relaxed her shoulders. If she was curious, or surprised, she didn't let on. And then it occured to Annie, that had she been in Mikasa's place, she would have freaked out because there was no way Annie knew Mikasa'd been in the navy.  
Except Annie remembered very well the time she'd drawn those wings.  
It had been in the waiting room at St. Helen's Hospital, where her father - and a good part of his platoon - lay in hospital beds, attached to breathing devices, trails of light showing the beating of their hearts on noisy screens.

What had happened wasn't really clear, something had gone wrong: they had been just a couple miles in open water when the torpedoes had quitted working and the engines had given in. A chain of explosions under deck, and the ship had started sinking, and shrapnels flying. That's all she could gather from those from her father's comrade who were in better shape and still had that crazy far away stare people get when they've been reeled in by the vortex a sinking ship causes.  
She took what people where willing to tell her and never asked more.

Annie had started drawing early, when her mother had left home claiming that having a husband in the navy was like having no husband at all. That she couldn't take the stress, the not knowing if he'd come home. That it was too much on her: his always being away, his always keeping secrets and his being _so_ sorry, but there were things he just _couldn't_ tell. Giving her worries, her hurt her anger, her hope a shape had been her coping mechanism.  
And so, in that sickly green waiting room, Annie had drawn. A series of shields. Then arms, and weaponry. Waves, shipwrecks. And tattoos, lots of tattoos. She'd done so until the nurse had told her her father was safe: the water had been taken out of his lungs, his surgery had gone well. And that's when she'd dropped the sketchbook on the horrid orange plastic chair on her right.  
" I... I didn't want to disturb you" a brown haired guy in the seat to her left had said. "But those" he had pointed to the drawings. "Are great." She'd raised her eyebrow, curling a strand of unwashed hair around her index." Thanks."  
He had looked as exhausted as she'd felt: dark circles under his eyes and dry blood on his lip from the many times he'd bitten it in distress. Hair ruffled from hands running through it non-stop.  
"Mind if I take a look?"  
He had gone through her sketchbook. And then he'd stopped on an image of two wings, the left one black, the right one white, crossing at the base. He'd traced the contours with his finger: "Can I have a copy of this?"  
"You can have the whole thing, if you want." Annie'd huffed. His green eyes had looked too big in the neon lights. "Seriously? I mean, it's... these are your drawings."  
She'd shrugged.  
"Woah, thank you then. But I'll just take this one... if you don't mind? My sister would love it, I'm sure. She- she was so excited, it was her first operation and... the nurse said she's fine, but she hasn't woken up yet and another nurse said it takes time, so I'm gonna- I'm gonna wait. She's strong, she's fine. The nurse said so. It's just... it would be great to have something to give her. As a good luck charm. Because she isn't going to back down, I know it. I just know! And, I'm sorry, I'm ranting. Would you like a coffee?"  
When Annie had gotten back from the hospital, she'd gotten the cherry blossom branch that went from her neck down to her shoulder blade and ran 'till it reached her fingers.

The wing tattoo took three hours. That time Annie learned Mikasa tensed and had a tendence of biting her lip when she disliked something. Like the black coffee she ordered after asking Annie if she'd like a tea, or coffee,perhaps? As a thank you.  
She'd learned that she cherished those wings; kept touching the gauze and smiling.  
That time, Annie learned that Mikasa probably woke up at night, like her father did, choking up water that wasn't there, screaming because of flying bulletts, and wondered if there was anyone that would hold her and rock her, taking her away from the salt and the crashing waves, the torpedoing water and the screams and the helplessness, and under the warmth of her covers.  
They didn't talk. While sipping a coffee that was bitter and watery and unpleasant, Annie took a quick glance at her chapped lips. She wondered if Mikasa had anyone to kiss her to sleep.

Her last client had exited fifteen minutes ago, all that had been left to do was clean up and close shop.  
Even though it had been way past nine o'clock - Mikasa wasn't the only one Annie did exceptions for. Still, the list was short -, the september breeze was warm, almost uncomfortably so, and filled the studio with the acrid smell of sun heated tar. Just the idea of the clinging humidity that would have taped the shirt to her skin once she would have exited the studio made her squirm with discomfort. Leaving the air conditioned studio had seemed a horrible idea and the paint buckets in the corner had shined in the neon light - softer than the hospital's one-, grey and metal and_ cool,_ beckoning her in, leaned against  
walls who stared at her, the black outlines of the drawings calling forth the image of even darker eyes. She'd picked up the brush.

Waiting for the paint on her walls - and shirt, and jeans - to dry, Annie sat on the wooden counter. She'd turned the light off at some point, letting the headlights of the cars in the street filter through the glass door of the tattoo shop and chase themselves in the room, highlighting the pink of the wooden lotus flower which took up the whole wall, the white and blue of the waves crashing against the flower ship, foam sticking to the petals.  
The brown beer bottle was heavy in her hand, the alcohol, bitter and smooth, welcome on her tongue.  
The nervatures of wood jutted out of the flower, unfurling themselves into a scroll just under the base of the ship:  
_"For you cannot see shadows in the darkness, I paint paintings of light. _  
_For you cannot have shadow without light, I herewith create darkness." _

She sat there a long time, thinking about her father's voice. "Yes. Yes, I know her. Lieutenant Commander Ackerman. Quit service four years ago, I hear. Apparently got more holes than a sponge protecting a civillian. Was in my platoon back when the Sina sank, you remember? She was brilliant, a great asset."  
Annie took another swig of her beer, took off her trainers and crossed her legs. Thought about the hospital-guy again, most likely Mikasa's brother,and smiled to herself, glad she'd given him that drawing. Happy it had been important to someone.  
When Annie had been younger, the urge to draw and put her feelings on paper had been just that: the whim of a teenager, in blinding need to express herself. Mostly, even though she wasn't a teenager anymore, it still was. But that alone wasn't the reason she'd chosen tattooing.  
The bell at the entrance chimed. Annie's eyes flickered to the clock: 12.47 pm.  
"Is there anybody? Annie?" a voice asked. Polite and strong, consistent, like picking up a sheet of steel and feeling it there, solid and concrete in your hand, while barely feeling it's weight.  
Annie's head snapped to the front door, where Mikasa stood concealed by the shadows. She saw Mikasa take a deep breath, and only noticed by contrast, when she saw her shoulder relax, and her fists unclench, that the woman had been ready to fight.  
"Hello." Annie greeted. Mikasa didn't move, just let out a sigh. "May I know...?" Annie raised an eyebrow, and let her head drop to one side. "I was passing by." Mikasa said, and when Annie didn't move, she went on. " It's late, the door was open. Not that there's high criminality here, or much they can take. Just thought it would be safer to check."  
Annie's eyes grew wide, as if she hadn't considered what it may have looked like from outside, then nodded. "Beer?" she asked, extending the glass bottle in her general direction. She saw Mikasa's eyes flicker from Annie's face to the bottle. "I'm sober, this is the first one I'm having" Annie added, taking in Mikasa's frown.  
"If you wanna sit on here, you'll have to take your shoes off, though."  
Mikasa's steps were long, and the jeans clung to her like a second skin. Her hair so black, Annie couldn't make it out from the dark background. Her lips still chapped when they closed around the bottle, and she tipped her head back, letting the liquid wet her mouth before opening it and drinking. Her eyes went to Annie. And then Mikasa was pressing the bottle in her hand again, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and Annie for a split second stared through half lidded eyes, before going back to drinking.  
"Annie?"  
"Mhmm." She put a strand of hair behind her dragon tattooed lobe.  
"What's your surname?" Mikasa had leaned against the counter.  
"Leonhardt." Annie took a swig.  
Mikasa bit her lip.  
"You Ivan Leonhardt's daughter?" Annie nodded.  
"Oh. Well, guess it makes sense. You do fit Eren's description." Mikasa shrugged, nodding at the same time, as if things did effectively make sense.  
"Eren?" Annie raised an eyebrow.  
"My brother. The one who gave me the drawing. I believe you met in the hospital; green eyes, dark hair."  
"I remember him."  
"Had only positive things to say. Great drawing, though. Compliments." Mikasa touched her nape, and smiled ever so lightly.  
Annie nodded in acknoledgment.  
The headlights lighting up the studio became few and far between: they didn't move. Swapping the brown glass bottle between them, Mikasa and Annie only stared at the scroll painted on the wall.  
_For you cannot see shadows in the darkness, I paint paintings of light. _  
_For you cannot have shadow without light, I herewith create darkness._

By the third time Mikasa dropped by to check if the studio's door was open because someone got in, or if it was just Annie escaping the heat, drinking in the dark had become a habit both women had been happy to fall into in the past few weeks.  
Sometimes questions where asked and answered, but mostly they just sat there, eyes closed, or watched the traffic outside, letting the cars roll into their view and out of their sight in the time of barely two swigs.

It was a saturday. Mikasa jerked her chin towards the scroll on the wall, and the read the writing aloud. "Have you written it?"  
Annie nodded. "Sometimes, I have to remind myself."  
Sometimes, she did. Because no matter how many people dropped into her studio, sometimes she kept forgetting. Kept forgetting the reasons that had driven her to tattoo.  
" It's easy to loose sight of your goal when it's something you can achieve on a daily basis, but looks so great, and marvellous, and impossible to reach. I tattoo people everyday. If I do it right, if my clients stare at their necks and shoulders and wrists and say: "Yes, this is me. This is exactly how I feel." then I've achieved my goal. But... doing that, every single day of my life, to every single person? Doing it right? It seems... overachieving."  
Mikasa nodded. She'd long taken to taking off her shoes and leaning on the counter, or just sitting on the edge of it, letting her legs dangle.  
" Sometimes it's insane. People are rude, or they bring horrible drawings. I mean, happy them, they're paying for it, but still. It's... demotivating."  
"So you have to remind yourself." It was an invitation to go on.  
"Yes," Annie said, nodding herself " The reason I got it started at all was because when I drew, people... liked my drawings. Said they reflected theirselves in them. And everyone kept complimenting them. Everytime someone said something about a drawing it was just... I could see it in them, the picture I'd created. Deformed by their own emotions. It's always been like that."  
She stared at the wall, her gaze blank. Then licked her lips. "What I do when I tattoo is expressing my own feelings, but mostly it's like shining light on the person itself. The figure is there, it's always there, already carved in the skin. I just have to bring it out. This... this is idiotic, I'm drunk."  
"You're not." Mikasa shook her head. "This is neither idiotic, nor are you drunk."  
"I think I get it, the first part at least. I felt it, like there was something there that wanted to come out. It _needed_ to come out, was already inside me. So I get at least the first part.  
It's like... I don't know, the river is there, but if it's night, and you don't have a light, you won't see it. Maybe you'll trip and drown. What you do is making the river visible, right?"  
Annie nodded. Mikasa frowned.  
"But assuming that the absence is darkness, and the presence light-"  
" When you draw on someone else's skin, you have to do it right. It's their feeling being exposed. Plenty is also people just wanting a pretty butterfly, and that's fine,too.  
Once the tattoo is done, though, there's no turning back. You see the river, and... you see the waves and the shadows - which have the _shape_ of the object, but are _not_ the object itself. And the rocks. It's all in plain sight. The best place to hide a tree is in a forest. Once it's out, it's out. It's not always a good thing, just a necessary one. And for some people - not all, only a minority I'd say - once it's _on_ their skin, and _out_ of themselves, people might not see the feeling anymore, forget it ever was there. Sometimes choose to, even as the weight is still present. Or regret it altogether."  
"Just because you've gotten it out of your system, doesn't mean you have to forget? Or ignore? No one likes the shadows, I guess. "  
"Flawed reasoning."  
"Very subjective."  
They stayed in silence 'till the headlights started fading in the red of dawn.

Annie never asked about the scars, and Mikasa never told.  
But one night, she asked for a new tattoo.

Mikasa's third tattoo was a puzzle with a writing on it. It ran from her shoulder, down to her wrist. Style: Black and white.  
It read:  
_For you cannot see shadows in the darkness, I paint paintings of light. _  
_For you cannot have shadow without light, I herewith create darkness._

That time, Annie learned that the running headlights on the wall were beautiful, when reflected on Mikasa's skin. She learned that when interested, Mikasa would cock her head, crack her neck when insulted. She got to know the palm of her hand, and her need for control reflected in her eyes following the gun's every tiny movement.

That time, Annie learned the taste of Mikasa's lips: chapped, scraping her mouth in a slighlty rough caress, with a vague hint of salt and beer.

She learned that:_ You know, about four years ago, an operation went wrong_...

And it's still a running joke between them, but when people ask them how they came to know each other they both keep quiet, and smile. There's nothing original about their meeting, nothing to hide. But the words have to be chosen carefully and the sentences phrased properly. And the proper sentence, the only one Annie acknowledges in her head, doesn't have to be shared. It's written on her collarbone, anyway. 'Cause, you know, Annie got to know Mikasa through tattoos.

Here I am again. I certainly hope you enjoyed the story - and if you did, please thank my gorgeous girlfriend who gave up tumblring time to help me with all the tattoo stuff. I owe her so, so much, and thank her for sure. - ,and I'm just here again to tell you that this is my first take at a somewhat longer one-shot and I'd be thrilled if you let me know what you think about it. Moreover, English isn't my first language so please a) excuse any mistakes I've made and make sure to b) point them out.  
Any constructive criticism is more than welcome and reviews are great; they make me happy.


End file.
